Posts by Spherix

  • de_holland (WIP) + introduction

    As for the water problems, making every single intersecting brush a displacement did seem to fix the problem; you do however have to keep in mind (although i don't think you'll have a problem with this) that if you have brushes on the edge of the map that 'seal' your map; displacements aren't going to seal it. I had it with a few mountains on my map, light started to leak trough the bottom and sides of the brushes that were converted to displacements but were also sealing the map.

    I did not even know we had islands that both features lighthouses and windmills and already wondered why, but it seems you found pictures that made sense (although the windmill faces the opposite direction ;-)) As for shadows coming from it; you could also just change the direction the light_env comes from with the 'point at' property of it.

    You currently make it sound as if you chose the island layout cause you needed logical borders for the map, but there are so many things you could do with that; take a look at Naarden Vesting for example;

    [Blocked Image: http://www.gooischetamtam.nl/wp-content/uploads/naarden-vesting2.jpg]

    Need I say more?

    Other options is using the 'default scenery' in the netherlands: farms. Placing a few acres of farm around your map could easily do the trick as it's easy to put those in a 3d skybox as well, but a simple fence or ditch/trench could easily act as border without the need of having to place a big wall or such. Don't forget dykes either ;)

    Just a note on your realism debacle; I agree that maps don't have to be truely accurate for players to enjoy them, but there's quite the difference between the suits a hostage is wearing and putting the tower of pisa in new york. Your windmill is a big landmark, as is the lighthouse, I'd take that in account. You mentioned that the map might be a bit small, and I think that both CT and T can reach eachother very quick based on the image of your layout (note: haven't seen this ingame, so could be wrong here). That still gives you the option to enlarge the area of conflict, perhaps a bit more around the windmill even if it is facing the other side. I don't think most people are familiar with windmills on higher ground as you showed in a photo above, so I think a 'normal' windmill would be more identifiable by the players as dutch .

    One more thing regarding your layout looking at it again, is that to me it seems that the most top path isn't showing much value -> do players even use it?

  • de_holland (WIP) + introduction

    As a fellow Dutchman I'll have to watch the progress of this map now.. ;) Based on your story and the screenshots I do have several questions though.

    Layout wise the map might be fun, but the way you filled it in doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The side the windmill is currently placed to (a non-rotating windmill at the moment I noticed), it's not going to work -> it's not a logical place to direct a windmill to since the buildings/lighthouse seem to block the incoming wind. Since you mentioned you love historical city centers, I think you should pay a bit more attention to what's logical and what's not.

    Aside from that, I do like the general idea, although it doesn't seem as if the water is currently a big part of the gameplay, which is something you mentioned you wanted to achieve. Furthermore you mention that the current state is a heavy WiP and things are subject to change. I wonder then why you went through the process of texturing and detailing some spots already, if you wanted to test the initial layout, I'd either go for the grey/orange dev textures, or use a few textures and not add detail such as plants. Some things are very rough such as the bridges, which indicated to me that you were focussing on layout tests, hence I find the added details in random places a bit odd; correct me if i'm wrong here. As for putting a bombsite in a church, you'll have to wonder if that's something you can live with, I can imagine not everyone liking that as much ;)

    I am doing my best not to sound to negative, but the map and your idea's keep raising one too many questions cause it got me exited

    As for the general references in your map, I advise you not to cram every 'trademark' of The Netherlands in one small island map. If you're going for an island map, you should take references to actual islands in account if you ask me. Take a look at Texel for example:


    [Blocked Image: http://www.lifeinamsterdam.com/storage/texel%20island%20air.jpeg]

    The lighthouse is quite far away from the village; if you do not plan to make the lighthouse a sniperspot (in other words, allowing players to go up), I'd say try moving it further away from the village itself. It's large enough to still act as a reference point for navigation in that position. As for water in maps, I might be the only one that is bothered by it, but I noticed your map features the same 'bug' as I encountered the past days in topic. ;)

    Looking forward to your iterations; if you need help on anything don't hesitate to send me a pm for skype contact etc. I like to learn too

  • [CS:GO] Water bugging/cutting?

    Hey there RedYager; thanks for the reply.

    The water at floor level is all the same height and type, I've only got some extra water in a small cave that has a small entrance and exit; I'm not too familiar with PVS unfortunately so I couldn't tell if it's 'breaching' or not.

    I've noticed one thing in the link you posted; In order for water surfaces to render correctly, it is necessary for your map to have a skybox, and the water brush itself rectangular.

    I've currently got some water textures that are triangular instead of rectangular in my attempt to seal the level off correctly instead of mashing a giant cube all over my map.. is Valve saying I should just mash the giant cube on there? As for displacements, I really don't think I'm going to convert every single intersecting edge to a displacements; the map was meant as small climb map, ported from 1.6; it's not meant to look awesome, but I had no idea that adding water would be such an effort.. I'll attempt the giant cube, and whilst several water tutorial videos do show that displacements seem to work alright, I really don't think I'm even capable of putting such effort in the map in its current state... Besides that, it would be an idiotic requirement just to add water with a fancy texture =/

    Edit: nope, changing the water to one enormous brush doesn't do the trick either; even removed other water elements that were not at same level..

  • [CS:GO] Water bugging/cutting?

    One thing I did just notice in a last test is that there are two aztec textures for water (well, 3 actually but one is a _cheap texture). One of these aztec textures does not have the clipping problem, but when I dive into the water, visibility is zero; even if I add some lights under water for testing sake, i cant see anything in the water.


    Problem seems to be lying in the way the engine deals with certain textures, and whilst the aztec texture that doesn't show the clipping looks great from above and i can see the bottom of the basin trough the water, but nothing once I dove in =/.


    Too bad 1.6 textures look so damn retarded in a source environment, but they at least work @_@.

    Nevermind the above, the texture that seemed to be correct was a replacement due to low graphic settings; it was using the cheap aztec texture.. Source.. sucks. -> only the _cheap textures don't have this problem.

  • [CS:GO] Water bugging/cutting?

    I've done some more testing with a boxed map with various water:

    - if I kept 1 unit of space inbetween the walls/basin and the water, you could see trough the walls from within the water

    - if the water was measured to the walls of the basin (no units inbetween) the line/clipping as in the screenshots above occured

    - if the water overlapped the wall (with 4 units), the line got even bigger.

    I looked for a prefab that had some water in it, assuming that would be as how water should be; I've downloaded this: http://css.gamebanana.com/prefabs/6260 and built it for cs;go, with dev_water5 texture applied cause the one that was on the map isnt in cs:go (shouldnt matter that its a css prefab). However, the same problem still occurs, a clear line can be seen on the edges of the water.

    Could someone else build that prefab and tell me if they experience similar results? I'm starting to think Hammer is bugged

    Edit: I have come to the conclusion that apparantly I am the first person to notice this/be annoyed by this. Even in official maps such as de_lake, you can still see that the edge of the water is causing the clipping line on brushes. The devs do 'cheat' a little by using similar colors in the water and the textures that surround the water, so the line is less noticable, something that isn't really possible in the map I'm making due to the fact that the water aligns to multiple surfaces with different textures and with that colors.

    So.. no fancy water then?

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/ZDLwHS7.png]

  • [CS:GO] Water bugging/cutting?

    Hehehe, nice image.

    No pointfile is generated, so I assume there is no leak; can't visually see one either. And as for the clipping, I have already done this it does it on every single edge. I compiled a demo map that had multiple types of water on it, same issue. Added the water controller water_lod_control and a bunch of cubemaps; built cubemaps as well -> no result.

    Edit: I notice that it doesn't occur when I use the _cheap water textures; but as they look, well, cheap.. I don't want to use those. There's plenty of maps where this works fine in cs:go, so there must be something I'm not doing right here...

    Edit2: I've made a small test level with a hollowed cube, a box to stand on and some water, works flawless.. I have _no_ idea what is causing my glitch now =/

    Edit3: I went nuts and redid all the water in a more intense way (resulting in a lot more blocks), same result. If I use noclip to sit on the waterline itself, i can see trough the entire world at that height. Is the noclip screwing things up or something? It still doesn't say there is a leak or anything..

    [Blocked Image: http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/13342705/img/13342705.png]

    Edit 4: Can't let this rest..

    Made a small box with water in it in the same map, seemed good at first, untill viewed from certain angle -> same issue.

    It appears to me the nodraw is what is causing the error: As seen in the screenshot, the insides of the box get seetrough once i go outside of the map, but if the box is viewed from the outside, you cannot see trough. The inside of the walls of the box are textures, so in theory that should not be see through. The outside of the water is however nodraw as suggested by valve themselves, which seem to cause this issue now? I'm confused.

    [Blocked Image: http://s22.postimg.org/w2jtv5m1t/waterbug2.png]

  • [CS:GO] Water bugging/cutting?

    So I was trying to add some water to a small experiment map of mine and I noticed that on every edge where the water touches other objects, it sort of cuts trough.

    Tried a number of water textures, all sides but the top have been nodraw'ed. Am I missing something?

  • So how does one continue..? [CS:GO]

    Hi there,

    I've been away from the mapping scene for a good 8 years, and returned to mess about with Hammer a while ago. After trying to pick up slack on my current project, I release I am stuck due to lack of experience with more advanced mapping techniques.

    One of the main things that will need doing (i think) at this moment is the ground. The original map (Destroyed Village from MOH:AA) features quite a bit of uneven ground, in other words: displacements. Since the buildings on the map are not all at the same level, I can figure out how to manage the displacements, but since these do not seal the worlds I was wondering what the proper approach is the build the floor. The main brushwork is pretty much done, in regards to that the next stage is filling the level with debrees, adding in detail that the source engine is capable of and the old MOH:AA game wasn't; texturing etc. etc.

    As for the floor, to seal it up I could either go about putting a big box of nodraw below the level, and having displacements for the walkable floor itself. Or.. try to place a more realistic floor at right levels, put more effort in it, and then place displacements on top of em. Long story short: i have no idea how to continue, and what the right approach is.

    [Blocked Image: http://i47.tinypic.com/3zk48.jpg]